Police say 'whistling and cat calling' jibes belittle misogyny stance

Nick Charity

Sue Fish, Nottinghamshire's top police officer has slammed the response to the announcement that there would be a stronger stance taking on misogyny.

Lauding the force's groundbreaking move, making it the only one in the country to treat misogyny as a hate crime.

Now, claiming some responded were claiming police were 'focusing on whistling and cat calling', the Chief Constable says some have 'trivialised' her intention to add a category, 'applying to a range of incidents reported to the police, from street harassment through to unwanted physical approaches.'

She has now reiterated the importance of tackling misogynistic attacks which can cause serious distress, faced threats and sometimes physical and sexual abuse for turning down propositions.

She said: "Misogynistic hate crime can cause significant distress to women, who have been known to face threats and in some cases sexual or physical abuse for turning down propositions. We have heard first-hand accounts from women who have been through this, who were left frightened and intimidated, but felt there was nothing they could do about it.

"Claiming we are focusing on wolf-whistling and cat-calling does nothing more than trivialise our intentions. We want to encourage women to feel that they can report incidents where they have been made to feel intimidated, or frightened by this unacceptable unwanted behaviour.

"We do not think it is acceptable for men to grope women in nightclubs, or for men to shout sexually explicit comments about what they want to do to a woman. As with any crime or incident which is reported to us, we will respond in a proportionate manner.

"We want to give women the confidence to report misogynistic hate crime, educate everyone about the impact that this sort of behaviour can have on people’s quality of life, show that this should not be tolerated and make Nottinghamshire a safer place."